Garage must pay damages, jury decides

Press, 29 July 1976, Page 3

Garage must pay damages, jury decides

PA Auckland: A service station must! pay a crippled man $137,000 because it failed to notice a steering fault in a car which crashed a day; after passing a warrant of! fitness test, a jury in the Su-I preme Court in Auckland! has ruled. The jury awarded the damages to Rodney Quick, aged 30, at midnight on Tuesday after deliberating nearly nine hours. He claimed the damages from the Mercury Bay Service Station, in Whitianga.

The claim alleged that the 1937 Chevrolet car had a dangerously defective or badly-worn link in the steering, and that it should have been discovered by the garage at the time of the warrant.

Counsel, Mr G. V. Hubble, | said yesterday that he j believed it was one of the highest sums in damages awarded in a civil claim in New Zealand. After the accident, in December, 1970, Mr Quick spent 181 days in Thames Hospital. A former fitter and turner, and married with three young children, he is now without a job. “He is able to move without a stick — only just — about a kilometre a day,” said Mr Hubble. | He still had the use of his arms.

The accident happened when the car carrying Mr Quick and three passengers — one his brother — left the Thames-Tapu Road. His three passengers escaped injury.

His brother, who did not have a driver’s licence, had bought the car for $l7O. The jury, after a nine-day he*aring, awarded $109,000

(general damages, $25,500 i loss of wages, $2500 general special damages, and costs.

Mr Hubble had with him IMr M. E. Bowen. The claim I was for $150,000 general (damages. The action was heard before Mr Justice Barker. | Mr A. L. Hassall, counsel I for the service station, said this afternoon that the court had yet to decide as a point of law whether a garage could be held liable. If the jeourt ruled in favour of the garage, then Mr Quick ■would not get the money. ;The point would be heard in Iseveral weeks.

Garage proprietors throughout the country would be told of the decision, said the executive director of the Motor Trade Association (Mr C. Stone, of Wellington).

“We’re most concerned about the effect this could have,” he said. “We’ll be studying the decision very seriously when we can get a copy.” The association has 2000 ! members with authority to i issue warrants of fitness. It was significant that until recent years most warrant work was done by garages, he said.

Staring down at his crippled legs yesterday morning, Mr Quick said: “The money is no real consolation.” He cannot return to his former trade. He cannot even celebrate his win, because “we have nothing to celebrate with.” He believed he would face appeals before being certain that the money was his. The (money would be devoted to his three children — two (girls, aged seven and four, and a boy, aged five.